Alan Van Heuvelen - US grants

Research during the last two decades has shown that conventional physics instruction fails to alter student alternative conceptions (misconceptions), to improve their problem-solving expertise, and to help students form a coherent knowledge structure that can be effectively accessed when needed. Recent experiments in physics education show that we can do much better. In these experiments, students are active participants in constructing their own knowledge and in developing expert-like strategies to solve standard and complex problems. In this project, two new sets of active learning aides are being constructed and evaluated, including a set of Concept Construction Experiments and a set of Experiment Problems. These activities are being used in lecture, recitation, and laboratory instruction in large introductory physics classes for engineers and science majors. The kits are being integrated with previously developed active learning pencil- and-paper activities into a coherent program of physics instruction called OCS (Overview, Case Study) Action Physics. An Active Learning Student Study Guide and Laboratory Manual are being prepared to supplement a conventional textbook. A coordinated effort is being made to help students construct their own conceptual models, to develop the individual skills needed to use those models to solve complex problems, and to help students organize this knowledge (conceptual and procedural) into a coherent structure that can be accessed effectively. Previous and current work have shown considerable promise for this method of instruction.

This is a multi-university project to establish a coordinated research program on the effective design and use of computers in physics instruction. The project has three major components: (1) Extension and refinement of an instructional theory grounded in the view that the development of validated mathematical models for physical phenomena is the main activity of physics. (2) Application of the theory to the design of a versatile Modeling Workstation for computer-based instruction. (3) Development of techniques for using computers to enhance instruction in large classes and integrate this with laboratory instruction. The workstation will be equally applicable to classroom and laboratory instruction as well as to independent use by individual students.

GER-9553460 Stith The Ohio State University Physics Department is submitting a proposal to the National Science Foundation under the NSF Graduate Research Traineeship Program. Our proposal is that five Graduate Research Trainees be funded each year for five years. These students will work to earn PhD's in physics with specialties in physics education research. Their training will focus on the theory and methods of teaching and learning in physics and on the use of technology to enhance that learning. These efforts will involve collaborations with several private companies. The five specific objectives of our proposal are as follows. A) To produce PhD physics graduates who develop the research and teaching skills and the knowledge about cognition and learning that will prepare them to lead future efforts to improve science education in the United States. B) To produce PhD physics graduates who gain the knowledge and develop the skills to produce and implement effective systems of learning based in part on the use of technology. C) To increase the number of talented PhD physics graduates from traditionally underrepresented groups who have this knowledge and these skills. D) To increase the number of PhD physics graduates trained in all areas of physics who also have the knowledge of physics education research to implement new forms of instruction in the education systems in which they may work in the future. E) To help produce a positive systemic change in the learning system of a state university with over 50,000 students --a change that better prepares these undergraduate students for the twenty-first century information- age workplace. We propose that the five Graduate Research Traineeships be funded in physics at OSU each year for five years. The cost to the NSF for these Traineeships will be $112,500 per year. Ohio State University's matching contribution of $27,000 per year will be realized by paying the tuition of the NSF support ed trainees in excess of $8400 per year and in $100 per year of miscellaneous support and travel for the trainees.

During the past 7 years, the Department of Physics has made two major reforms in its laboratory program for the introductory calculus-based physics course. The first effort in 1989 involved the introduction of the microcomputer-based laboratory (MBL) tools into instruction in the first quarter of the course. The second effort built on the first and extended the use of the MBL tools into the second and third quarters. In addition, a series of new activities were developed in which students first acquired important concepts of physics using a guided-inquiry approach. Students then in later laboratories used these concepts quantitatively to solve more complex experiment problems. The innovations supported by the present project permit integration of interactive simulations and multimedia into this laboratory learning system. These simulation activities supplement the experiments and allow more efficient use of the limited time that is available to achieve learning objectives. The simulations that accompany real experiments build student confidence in the authenticity of the simulated world. By observing multiple representations of processes, students have a better chance of developing imagery and intuition for the abstract symbolic representations used in physics. By observing a complex process in slow motion, they become better at breaking it in parts, solving the parts, and reassembling them to answer the big questions. By predicting how the change in a parameter affects a process, they become better at reasoning about physical processes. In summary, the supplementary simulations help students see how the computer can be a useful modeling tool for real-world processes.

This NSF GK-12 Fellow Project involves a collaboration of 17 grade 4-6 teachers, 17 NSF graduate and undergraduate content and technology resource fellows, and Ohio State University (OSU) science, engineering, pharmacy and math professors. The collaboration is adapting and implementing scientific and math investigations in grade 4-6 classrooms of the 64,000 student urban school district in Columbus, OH. The inquiry investigations support the curriculum of the schools and the inquiry strategies in the National Standards, the Ohio Model Competency-Based Science Program, and the Benchmarks in Science Literacy.
The project involves several key components: a) Four-person teacher-fellow teams each adapt 12 hours of inquiry investigations for use in special parts of the local curriculum. b) Before their use with students, other teachers and fellows participate as students in using the investigations during weekly 3-hour teacher-fellow classes. The teachers and fellows provide feedback that is used to modify the investigations. c) After revision, all of the teachers assisted by fellows use the inquiry investigations in their grade 4-6 classrooms. Each year, the focus is on one particular grade level, with follow-up visits to classes involved during previous years. In addition, the teacher-fellow teams produce kits that can be used by teachers in classes throughout Ohio. The dissemination of these kits is facilitated through summer workshops led by fellow-teacher teams for other Columbus grade 4-6 teachers and for OSU Extension Agents who offer workshops for teachers throughout Ohio.

Physics (13) This project is developing and testing for large enrollment introductory physics courses a unique multifaceted epistemological learning system-Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) - that replicates systematic discovery methods used by practicing scientists. The goal of this system is to bring "a scientific way of knowing" into the process of learning physics. A complete set of curriculum materials (published innovative textbook, student study guide, and instructor's guide including suggestions for experiments) is being developed for the algebra-based physics course taken primarily by biology majors and pre-medical students. In addition, resource materials, feedback formative assessment instruments, and recommendations on practical implementation of the ISLE are being prepared as supplements for this course and for the calculus-based introductory physics courses in which traditional physics texts are used. ISLE is being tested in algebra-based physics courses, in a bridging course for under prepared engineering students, and in regular and honors calculus-based physics for engineering students. The ISLE is based on research in physics education, cognitive science, and learning-outcome requests from the 21st century workplace. It is being used in several institutions-Ohio State University, Rutgers University, Chico State University and a two-year college. Students can be active learners rather than objects of teaching. Students construct the understanding of physics themselves following the same general pattern for each concept-devising and experimentally testing qualitative and quantitative explanations of the phenomena that they observe. Various proven thinking and learning strategies-multiple exposures, multiple representations, and multimedia-enhanced learning-are used. Students are active participants in all parts of the course, and they solve complex problems and apply their knowledge for practical purposes.
After taking the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) physics course, students should be better skilled in the techniques of scientific investigation, experienced in designing their own investigations and in decision making, able to construct their understanding of new concepts, and used to working collaboratively in groups to solve complex real life problems. They leave instruction with conceptual knowledge and procedural knowledge structures.

In real world learning situations, a wide variety of contextual cues become associated with gradually formed common sense knowledge. In contrast, school learning often emphasizes abstract symbolic manipulations, which can lead to students' difficulties in applying their knowledge to real world examples. To help students make intuitive sense of physics, it is necessary to address sensory stimuli that are explicitly or implicitly associated with students' common sense knowledge from experience. To do this, it is important to understand what contextual cues are involved in learning and how they affect the learning process.

For selected topics in introductory physics, we will conduct systematic qualitative studies to identify and investigate specific context cues that affect students' learning; we will develop methods to measure, evaluate and represent the involvement of context cues in different stages of learning; we will also develop physics activities in virtual environments to investigate experimentally how low-level sensory cues such as haptic feedback affect learning and how such cues may be addressed in instruction.

The resulting insights into the interplay between context and learning, and integration of contextual and sensory information into virtual environments will broaden the horizon of active engagement teaching methods and inform the development of teaching technologies.

This collaborative effort is developing activities that integrate knowledge building and formative assessment in the evaluation of learning at the introductory physics level. Included in this effort is the development of research-based formative assessment tools. These tools involve active engagement methods with appropriate feedback in the form of test kits of activities that are common in the practice of science and engineering. Such activities have been found to be the most effective intervention to help students achieve desired learning outcomes. Each kit includes six different types of activities, along with templates and rubrics that instructors can use for evaluation, and that students can use for self and small-group assessment of their own work. The scoring rubrics assess students' development of science and engineering abilities, and allow instructors to evaluate outcomes, improve the quality of feedback (the most important part of formative assessment), and establish the validity of the activities--do they assess the desired skills. The components of the kits are being developed and tested in large-enrollment introductory physics courses in two universities (one large research and one medium comprehensive university) with 1600 students each year, in a high school physics course (100 students/year), and in methods courses for pre-service teachers (15 teachers/year). Dissemination of the kits occurs via the web and by a publisher (hard copy and a CD), peer-reviewed papers, workshops and talks at national meetings.

The study is a controlled experiment to assess students' ability to transfer knowledge across the physics curriculum The goal of this proposal is to investigate whether laboratories in which students design their own experiments promote the development of certain scientific abilities and foster both near and far transfer. It examines whether some instructional innovations help students in a university science class to develop the abilities that they need for the workplace. The results of this study should provide a significant test of whether or not student scientific abilities can be developed in physics that transfer to a new content area and to a different social setting. The term scientific abilities is defined as the process to be reflective and critical about a problem; it includes designing an experiment, identifying assumptions in a mathematics procedure, collecting data, and communicating results. The project involves an experimental design with 160 students in introductory physics courses taught with a science learning approach. Students are randomly assigned to experimental and control groups that will compare traditional laboratories with student-designed experiments.

The PuM project develops and conducts research on a learning continuum for seamless instruction in middle school physical science and high school physics. The project is built on a conceptual framework that uses physical science and physics to strengthen students' concepts in pre-algebra, algebra, algebra 2 and geometry. Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE), an introductory physics curriculum that builds on advances in cognition, is modified to engage students in representing processes and knowledge in multiple ways using real world contexts for students to learn mathematics and physics. The physics Active Learning Guide (ALG) is included as a learning tool. The ultimate goal of the project is to use physics as the context to develop mathematics literacy, particularly with students from underrepresented populations and special needs students. The research component of this R&D project analyzes the effects of the PuM curriculum on students' learning using laboratory exercises, videos and unique experiments and associated equipment while simultaneously investigating teachers' pedagogy content knowledge in a variety of forms. During the period of funding, the project will: (1) develop a middle school and high school curriculum called PhysicsUnionMath (PuM) by adapting the already established curricula from ISLE and ALG for grades 6-12; (2) develop, pilot, and assess five middle school and high school Physics First PuM modules; (3) pilot and assess one full year of the proposed PuM curriculum with honors physics students; (4) design and implement a professional development plan for teachers to learn the program; and (5) study the implementation of this curriculum with the targeted populations.